Summary: An excerpt from a series I ministered entitled "The Hospital Series"

[13] Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. [14] As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. [15] While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. [16] When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” [17] On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Today we begin our Hospital Series and in this series we will take a tour through the many departments and functions of the hospital and compare that to what we ought to be and are in the church.

The hospital is in place to provide assistance and treatment to those in need of relief from pain, sickness or ailments. It provides many facets and functionalities that at the end of the day result in what it is designed and purposed to do, save lives.

The hospital is a place where you come to seek help and seek assistance to get better or ensure you remain in a healthy state once your health has been compromised or challenged from poor living habits, hereditary traits or sudden accident or trauma. This place is home to doctors/physicians and multiple specialists in which we will visit on our tour through the next couple of weeks and we will learn their functions and day to day operations and roles. Hospitals were a place where it provided the comfort and relief to those who had a heart for healing and delivering people from their pain and wanted to help people live. Doctors used to make house calls for check ups and would surround themselves with people who were sick in order to study them and learn about the illness to develop treatments and healings. Today hospitals have become cathedrals with fine art, fancy gift shops and elaborate suites that overcharge you for treatment before even being treated. You now have to prove you have insurance in order to even being seen at times or even pre-authorized before having a procedure done. Some hospitals have pulled away from the original grand scheme design to be available at all times for the public and have instituted business hours and secretarys to schedule you in regardless of the sense of urgency or pain you may have making it less effective and useful to most.

The church was a place once upon a time where it housed the sick and shut in. Remember them? It was a place where food banks would be designed and functioned as a place for the sinner to come to be nursed back to health in their spirit. It was a place where the physician on staff would be available on call to pray with and for all who entered but now has changed into a mall in some instances. It now has gift shops with ATMs inside and bookcases with CDs and fan paraphernalia for the church logo, pastor or Jesus. The doors were always open all the time but now function similar to the hospital where some you have to schedule time to meet with the pastor and have a certain coverage in order to be seen. The pastor in some cases will need to be prepaid before performing certain duties or coming to see about the saint/sinner which in essence causes some to remain sick/lost or even die in their ailment.